Latinxs, especially Latino males, have lower college completion rates, but studies find that community cultural wealth is prominent in the narratives of those who succeed in higher education. By focusing on current students or recent graduates, the literature has not examined how a college completion experience aided by community cultural wealth…

In this case study, I draw attention to key Nevada Latina/o legislators' policy ways of knowing and their higher education policy priorities. A focus on the policy actors uncovered structural, racial, and cultural assumptions in policy-making often absent in the exclusive analysis of policy interventions. Their policy ways of knowing were shaped…

Legislative professionalism is central to the politico-institutional context of postsecondary policy adoption in state governments. The core argument in existing research is that as legislative professionalism increases, structural capacity for decision-making increases. Evidence for this argument is mixed, exclusively quantitative, and assumes a…

Although there is a rich critical literature examining international student policy in Canada, very little of it considers the views of Members of Parliament. MPs have limited direct influence over international student policy, but their policy talk about international students defines the context within which such policy is developed. For that…

While little research has been conducted on Asian undocumented students in higher education, it was the powerful story of an Asian undocumented high school student, Tereza Lee, that inspired Senator Richard Durbin to co-author immigration legislation known as the 2001 DREAM Act. Tereza's story represents an important counter-story to what many…

Troubled by the inequities in competitive grantmaking, we use critical quantitative methods to analyze the FY2023 federal academic earmarks as a potential mechanism for racialized change work. Specifically, we ask: To what extent does Congress distribute academic earmarks in ways that reinforce or weaken the racialized stratification of resources…

Background: Nearly two decades have passed since the last successful reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Since then, student loan debt and the accumulation patterns based on race have become a pressing issue to address in U.S. society. Purpose: Student debt is one of the key issues on the federal higher education policy agenda. The…

This study uses critical discourse analysis to explain how legislators determine the role and contributions of academic researchers in Congressional legislative hearings. The discursive practices that legislators use serve to construct the social identity of academic witnesses, characterize witnesses' qualifications, solicit information from…

As postsecondary education has become increasingly important to California's economy and quality of life, the state has been considering how best to meet student and workforce needs over the long term. State leaders recognize that coordination across educational sectors is crucial to addressing these needs. The now-defunct California Postsecondary…

The persistent problem of sexual assault on college campuses is receiving attention in both the public sphere and state legislatures. Although a considerable body of research examines various aspects of campus sexual assault, such as rates and reporting, scholars have not examined how state characteristics and interstate dynamics influence the…

The purpose of this study is to investigate policy coalitions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) at U.S. congressional hearings. This study is grounded in the advocacy coalition framework, which argues that advocacy coalitions are forged by policy actors who have similar policy preferences. To identify the coalitions, according to the policy…

As Washington prepares to welcome a new Congress in January 2023, incoming policymakers who want to improve education for every student and give parents more control over where and how their children are educated have many policy options at their disposal. New Members of Congress who want to protect taxpayers and rein in college costs also have…

Higher education is under siege by a barrage of policy initiatives that aim to fundamentally transform the academy. The most visible and most sustained assault has come in the form of funding cuts. Nationally, funding for public higher education was 18 percent lower in 2016 than in 2008, amounting to a $10 billion total disinvestment. In many…

There is a gap in understanding between legislators, governors, and other leaders and those who actually manage the distance learning operations on the nation's campuses. Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE) Cooperative Study of Educational Technologies (WCET) took a systematic approach to gauging the opinions of distance…

Public institutions in the United States face a policy challenge to adapt to accountability expectations among a variety of stakeholders (Bogue & Hall, 2012; Thelin, 2004; Richardson & Martinez, 2009). Among the major stakeholders are state legislators who hold fiscal and policy influence over public institutions, but these leaders have…